Afterschool Alliance Addresses "School To Prison Pipeline"

The Juvenile Justice Ecosystem -- a graphic created to show the stages of intervention before a child enters the juvenile justice system.

Credit Wyoming Afterschool Alliance

More than 100 people gathered in Riverton on Tuesday for the Statewide Summit on Juvenile Justice hosted by the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance. The summit brought together a diversity of stakeholders — from school staff to after school providers to social workers to prosecutors — to figure out how to keep kids engaged in school and out of the juvenile justice system.

National experts presented data on how the majority of juvenile offenses take place during unsupervised time and discussed how afterschool programs keep kids engaged in positive activities, improve graduation rates, and ultimately reduce crime.

Allison Anderson is the Chair of the State Advisory Council on Juvenile Justice. During a panel on Wyoming perspectives from the juvenile justice field, she said, unfortunately, the legislature is cutting programs that help at-risk kids. “We continue to see with the legislature that discussions are had, but somehow the result still ends up that we are cutting those front end services over and over again.”

Anderson acknowledged there are tough budget decisions before the legislature, but she questioned why early intervention services for kids are the first things to get cut. “And it just doesn’t make logical sense to me when there is research report after research report that says that’s not the better investment,” referring to the cost of incarcerating young people.

Damon DeBernardi, an attorney for Sweetwater County, who was also on the panel said kids end up in the system because they need help. “Kids that are ending up in the juvenile justice system are coming in with some serious mental health needs.” He said it makes a difference, “having the Afterschool Alliance, and having county agencies provide mental health services to those children before they end up in the juvenile system.”

Data from the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance indicates early intervention engages kids on a healthy path, and it saves money too by keeping kids out of detention, and out of prison as adults. It costs about $800 a year to have a child in an afterschool program. It costs $9,660 a year to care for a child when the Department of Family Services has to intervene.

Related Content

14,000 kids in Wyoming participate in after-school programs, according to the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance. But if President Trump’s proposed budget is passed, up to 65 programs serving those students would be put at risk of closing unless they can find other sources of funding.

In a classroom at a Riverton activity center kids are sitting in a “connection circle.” They toss a ball around, and whoever has it has got to say what makes them happiest.

“I’m happiest when I am around my family,” one girl says before bouncing the ball to a boy. “I’m happiest when I’m riding my dirt bike,” he replies.

The idea is that if two kids are happy when they are doing the same thing, they make a connection. It wouldn’t feel out of place at an alternative high school–it’s actually an alternative to juvenile detention.

Wyoming continues to incarcerate youth at a rate much higher than the national average. That’s according to a new study by the National Juvenile Justice Network.

Since 2011, the number of kids held in detention centers has dropped dramatically across the nation. But not in Wyoming. New research shows Wyoming's youth confinement rate was 2.2 times the national average during that period.

26-year-old Cameron Largent lives with his mother in a big suburban house in Rock Springs. His favorite spot at home is the basement couch, where he’s set up to play the fantasy video game World of Warcraft.

“I’m a priest,” he says. “So my job is to run around and heal people. [my character] is the highest level you can get: level 100.”

Largent has had a lot of time to level up recently: he has been sober for six months. It’s the longest he has gone without drinking for years.

When you hear “law enforcement” what do you picture? A police officer, a sheriff’s deputy, maybe a highway patrol trooper--but probably not a prison guard. That is a problem for Wyoming’s Department of Corrections recruiting division. Right now they’re 20 percent short of guards system wide. A lot of that shortage is due to recent growth in high paying energy jobs, but Corrections has struggled for many years with recruitment and retention, in Wyoming and across the country.